Books

Bookshelf

In Social Justice Isn’t What You Think It Is, Michael Novak and Paul Adams seek to clarify the true meaning of social justice and to rescue it from its ideological captors.

By: Michael Novak, Paul Adams and Elizabeth Shaw

All Nature Is a Sacramental Fire: Moments of Beauty, Sorrow, and Joy

The Lord God Creator has given us five openings to the physical world around us, that sacramental world in which we swim: hearing, sight, taste, touch, and smell.

By: Michael Novak

Living the Call: An Introduction to the Lay Vocation

Since 1965 the number of priests in the United States has fallen by some 30,000. But over that same time period, more than 30,000 laypeople have come into the employ of parishes and other Church institutions.

By: Michael Novak and William E. Simon Jr.

No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers

Surveying the contemporary religious landscape, the division between atheist and believer seems stark. However, having long struggled to understand the purpose of life and the meaning of suffering, Michael Novak finds the reality of spiritual life far different from the rhetorical war presented by bestselling atheists and the defenders of the faith who oppose them.

By: Michael Novak

Washington's God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of Our Country

Washington has long been viewed as the patron saint of secular government, but in Washington's God , Michael Novak and his daughter, Jana, reveal that it was Washington's strong faith in divine Providence that gave meaning and force to his monumental life.

By: Michael Novak and Jana Novak

The Universal Hunger for Liberty: Why the Clash of Civilizations Is Not Inevitable

Starting with 9/11 and continuing with the struggle for peace in Iraq, the West has been forced to interact more fully with the civilization of Islam.

By: Michael Novak

On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding

In telling the story of the forgotten—if not deliberately ignored—role of faith in America’s beginnings, Michael Novak probes the innermost religious conviction of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and other of our Founders.

By: Michael Novak

Three in One: Essays on Democratic Capitalism, 1976-2000

Three in One introduces the reader to Novak's portrait of democratic capitalism.

By: Michael Novak; edited by Edward Younkins

On Cultivating Liberty: Reflections on Moral Ecology

Novak's crucial essays on "moral ecology": the ethos that must be cultivated and preserved if liberal democratic societies are to survive.

By: Michael Novak; Edited by Brian C. Andersen

Tell Me Tell Me Why: A Father Answers His Daughter's Questions About God

A father and daughter – Michael and Jana – exchange e-mails on God, churches, sex, and modern moods.

By: Michael Novak and Jana Novak

Business as a Calling: Work and the Examined Life

Work should be more than just a job – it should be a calling. This book explains an important part of our lives in a new way, and readers will instantly recognize themselves in its pages.

By: Michael Novak

The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The Church had for generations been reluctant to come to terms with capitalism, but, as Michael Novak argues in this important book, a hundred-year-long debate within the Church has yielded a richer and more humane vision of capitalism than that described in Max Weber's classic The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

By: Michael Novak

This Hemisphere of Liberty: A Philosophy of the Americas

This book explores fundamental questions of wealth and poverty, of freedom and responsibility, and traces our ideas about them to their sources in Aristotle, Aquinas, and the Judeo-Christian tradition.

By: Michael Novak

Character and Crime: An Inquiry into the Causes of the Virtue of Nations

Writing as a philosopher, not as a social scientist, the author takes a radically different approach to the study of criminality, asking not 'what are the causes of crime?' but 'what are the causes of virtue?' Novak concentrates on what builds character and why there is a serious lack of character in our culture and society today.

By: Michael Novak

Will it Liberate?: Questions About Liberation Theology

Michael Novak's work is challenging. We often disagree sharply in out interpretations and assessments of liberation theology, but he raises important issues which call for clarification and response.

By: Michael Novak

Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions

Increasingly, the religious leaders of the world are addressing problems of political economy, expressing concern about the poor. But will their efforts actually help the poor? Or harm them? Much depends upon what kind of institutions are constructed, that is, upon realism and practicality.

By: Michael Novak

Toward The Future: Catholic Social Thought and the U.S. Economy

A response to the Catholic Bishops' Pastoral on the U.S. economy, this book presents a lay point of view on Catholic social thought and the economy.

By: Michael Novak and Michael Joyce

Moral Clarity in a Nuclear Age

“Moral Clarity” is an analysis of the arguments for and against nuclear armament.

By: Michael Novak

Joy of Sports

One of Sports Illustrated’s “Top 100 Sports Books of All Time”

By: Michael Novak

Book of Elements

Perhaps one of the most consistently innovative popular liberal Catholic writers, Novak collaborated with his wife, artist-sculptor Karen Laub-Novak, in this series of explosive pensées concerning "the reliable elements of life."

By: Michael Novak

Illustrations by: Karen Laub-Novak

Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove: An Invitation to Religious Studies

The essence of Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove remains intact: its vision of religious studies as sustained reflection on our lifelong voyage to discover who we are.

By: Michael Novak

The Experience of Nothingness

Four requirements that must be met by an individual in order for the experience of nothingness to emerge: a commitment to honesty, a commitment to courage, recognition of how widespread the experience of nothingness is, and a virtue of will.

By: Michael Novak

Belief and Unbelief: A Philosophy of Self Knowledge

Perhaps the most widely read of Michael Novak's books. Belief and Unbelief attempts to push intelligence and articulation as far as possible into the stuff of what so many philosophers set aside as subjectivity.

By: Michael Novak

The Open Church

Michael Novak's eyewitness report on the second and pivotal session of Vatican II in 1964 vividly inter weaves pageantry, politics, and theology.

By: Michael Novak

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Thank you for contacting us via Michael Novak’s website.

Michael died in February 2017, and this website serves as a repository of his writings, and the writings of others on him.